Friday, August 31, 2012

Statement of purpose

This is a journal, not a diary. Diaries are kept by girls and tell all about their dates and what they think of their different boy friends. My mother says that men keep diaries too, that the most famous diary in the world was kept a long time ago by an Englishman named Pepys. That may be so, but when I read about pirates and explorers and sea captains they always keep journals, so this is going to be a journal. It is going to be a record of what happens to me this summer in New Jersey.[Who wrote this? Which book?]

Thursday, August 30, 2012

August gleanings

“Chapters 1 and 2 are the collaboration of Pam and Brian,
with a heavy admixture of Ben. Chapters 3 and 4 belong largely to Brian and
Tony. Chapter 5 is the fruit of Pam’s long efforts in the Vatican Library and
the Roman archives. Chapters 6 and 7 are largely the work of Tony, with
interventions from Brian. Chapters 8 and 9 are a three-way collaboration, with
equal parts Ben, Brian, and Tony. Chapters 10 and 11 are Ben’s. Chapter 12, the
epilogue, belongs to all of us. But this is truly a collaborative work.”

"The vision of H.P. Lovecraft as a matchmaker is an unlikely
one, but knowing that a young author named Henry Kuttner had been greatly
impressed by C.L. Moore’s fiction, he arranged a correspondence between the two,
which eventually culminated in their marriage.

"[…][T]he
marriage was professional as well as personal; few stories by either of them
after the event were by one of them alone. Dual efforts would appear under
either name, not to mention any one of nineteen (!) pseudonyms."